With continuous improvement of modern energy devices, engines have been more and more widely used. Taking a ship engine as an example, the ship engine includes an engine starter for controlling startup of the engine.
The engine starter includes a housing assembly, a motor, a driving gear, a solenoid switch, and a shifting fork connecting the driving gear with the solenoid switch. Upon activation of the solenoid switch, the motor rotates at a low speed. Under the influence of an electromagnetic force produced by an electromagnetic coil in the solenoid switch, a push rod of the solenoid switch moves axially downward to drive the shifting fork to move, which in turn drives a pinion gear of the driving gear into engagement with a flywheel of the engine, and the motor starts to drive the engine to ignite.
Because the shifting fork needs to connect with the driving gear and the solenoid switch, the housing assembly defines a mounting slot through its inner and outer wall surfaces, and the mounting slot has an opening at a bottom end of the housing assembly. The shifting fork is mounted into the mounting slot from the opening, and an L-shaped sealing device is mounted in the mounting slot, with one end of the sealing device sealingly contact the shifting fork and the other end sealing the mounting slot.
However, only the sealing device is filled in a portion of the mounting slot other than a mounting slot portion in which the shifting fork is disposed, which reduces the strength of the housing assembly. In addition, after the shifting fork enters the mounting slot, it cannot be positioned correctly, which can easily lead to malposition of the shifting fork.
Therefore, how to increase the overall strength of the housing assembly and ensure correct mounting of the shifting fork has become an important issue to be addressed.